Re: [debian-knoppix] Knoppix installed on HD: still not a standard Debian!
On August 1, 2003 12:52 pm, you wrote:
> Klaus _will_ NOT support intsallation of Knoppxi to HD. This is
> not the aim of Knoppix!!!
I suppose you made a typo here: you mean it's not the aim of
Knopper. Because if you look at the forums, you'll find that
though, just like Achim, users think Knoppix can be very helpful
as a Live-CD, they're really craving to install it on their HD
because it works so well.
If Knoppix was a private company looking forward to "keep the
customer satisfied", HD installation would have been a thing done
months ago.
That's why there's no reason for hype about Linux: we're loosing
the game. There is something wrong about the development model.
Linux is developed "en vase clos" (in uncommunicating vessels? :)
by developpers who don't give a damn about end users. If they're
not satisfied, they should learn programming, and that's it! What
remains to be seen is what programmers will think when their
dentist turns out to be another programmer...
Programmers don't learn to think as a non-programmer. Instead of
asking "Are your computers connected together and/or are you
using a cable connection (not your telephone line!) ?, they ask
if you want to install a DHCP server or DHCP broadcast. (Case
with Christian's script)
To install Lilo, instead of asking if you have more that one
installation on your hard disk(s), they ask if you want a to try
a simple or an expert installation.
So first, not being an expert, you choose simple, amd you can't
boot your old system.
So, you boot back to the new and choose "expert mode". But it
seems this eventuality hasn't been checked -- experts know what
they're doing and they choose Expert mode first -- and when you
boot back to your old system, it's looking for a directory with
the name of your new kernel. (Well... I can only guess that my
first lilo selection was the cause of my problem.)
With some chance you can find that old boot floppy and it's still
working... (Case with Slackware)
Though I hate their development model, I even tried Mandrake 9 a
few months ago. Everything was perfect, my dial-up connection
succeeded first time... but anytime I would reconnect thereafter,
the applicaations seemed to be unaware I was back online. I
consulted a Mandrake expert in Montreal to no avail. Ihad to
wipde-off Mandrake from my HD.
Though Linux has been releasing early for quite some time now, I
could make a phone directory thick list of bugs and interface
inadequacies I find in Linux. I usually find ten in the fist 2
minutes.
When I was using Windows (1996 - 2001), I often wrote to freeware
and shareware developpers to explain a bug on their soft (which,
at the begining, had very little options). They had a very keen
ear.... save for Paul Lutus (Arachnophilia) would always say no,
to later provide more than I had asked for.
I later worked as a beta-tester for Druide Informatique, authors
of Antidote, a french vocabulary and syntax corrector, in
Montreal. The number of hours I spent at the office or on the
phone with the vice-president -- sometimes until midnight -- to
explain how I thought things could be done better or to check how
long my... 486!!! would take to correct a test file is
unbelievable.
Those people were really listening, sifting the sense from the
nonsense. And the product is just beyond belief, mainly when you
understand what correcting french grammar means.
With Linux, I wrote a lot to people starting new distros, never to
be listened to, left to check the ensuing disasters. I never
wrote to developpers about their buggy full-features softs. I
thought if they used them at all, they'd find enough to do.
Then came Knoppix, which had a good development model and seemed
to care about end-users the way Windows freeware developpers do.
IT WORKED without wondering and pondering for hours. Like
everybody, I wanted to install it a year ago.
Unfortunately, KK, you know that guy who's put Knoppix together,
says he doesn't give a damn about HD installation. Christian
Perle got to understand the inner workings of Knoppix to write a
script only to give up after a few months. (Busy, pissed off of
being a hidden feature? God knows!)
Now, you, Fabian Franz, are also learning the inner workings and
starting so much from scratch that you say you can't produce a
boot floppy yet, which means it's still no use installing Knoppix
on HD. What will happen if you get busy, pissed off after 9
months while nobody is overseeing the project? Somebody will
start from scratch again?
Will there be a 3th, a 4th, a 10th year of Linux on the desktop? I
mean, is there still anybody here to think that the
ready-when-it's-ready philosophy will make the grade?
Does anybody understand that computing is no more a word processor
- email - spreadsheet business, that when houses will be run by
Microsoft, when even the Vatican's artwork will be available
through Microsoft (they already bought the rights with a few
restorations), when the low orbit communication satellites
lauched for cheap with electromagnetics cannons will be owned by
Microsoft, it will be too late to relearn the inner workings, to
be ready when it's ready?
What was it -- two years ago? -- I told one of Ian Murdock's
lieutenant that Progeny was packaging a way too expensive
product. It was more than twice Mandrake's price. I suggested
that Progeny be packaged like the first versions of Turbo Linux
with just a little installation booklet in the jewel case, with
the rest of the book on the CDs, for a quick and cheap over the
counter sale, eventually in high schools, colleges and
universities.
But it seemed I didn't understand people wanted a real book to
hold on. Endless discussions! I told the guy I was giving up.
When Progeny went belly up, I doubt they had sold 1000 of their
great offering.
Some time before, I was telling this Gaël Duval kid that investors
would be asking for their mony back sooner than he thought, that
he was spending way too much money to have his own developpers
redo what was being done anyway in the community.
But he had to take the world by storm and now Mandrake, just like
Bed Rat, think they're going to make it by spending on
development of an """open source system""" by cathering only to
companies. I know quite a few developpers who will cather to
companies... without development spendings!!!
Bed Rat got a whole bunch of money from stealing the investors,
mainly through their second offering, but does Mandrake think
they will survive begging for money?
Then again comes Knoppix with an easy to configure CD based on the
work of the Debian community and the developper says he won't get
into, not even supervise, a HD installation scripts.
It's driving me
N N U U TTTTTTTTTT SSSSSSS
N N N U U T S
N N N U U T S
N N N U U T S
N N N U U T S
N N N U U T S
N NN UUU T SSSSSSS
God damned stupid programmers! They remind me of an uncle of mine
who was a mechanic. He could take a whole car down to pieces to
the last bolt and put it back together. Since everybody came to
him with the vaguest approximative mechanical concepts, he
thought everybody was crazy and he was the king of the world in
any of its aspect.
Today, programmers are like mechanics 30 years ago. When they are
not "ruled" inside a company like Microsoft or Apple, they think
they are the kings of the world and nobody has anything to teach
them.
But, IMHO, what the Linux world needs now is the dreaded SUITS,
for planning and organisation!!!
So, what can I say, I'm a dummy since I'm not a programmer and Mr
Knopper will continue doing things his way. Check the results in
2 years from now max.
End of original message follows:
> Ok, I'm not competent enough ?
I said I don't know about this issue.
> Attached you have an special
> hacked up version only for _you_ with boot-floppy support!
Thanks, but it's not the only problem. I want a stable, standard
Debian distro that I can really rely on.
I need basic instructions to set up a firewall. I know I can call
it foofire and start it from misc.sh ... at the right moment
during boot. But I new to know how it's done in Debian so I can
read documentation if I ever run into a problem.
> I just hadn't the _time_ to program it. Ok ?
No problem. As I said, call me for version 1.
> It was very pressing to get it on LinuxTag edition anyway and
> have it halfway usable ... since then I have done, could do
> _no_ work ...
That's why I was saying you might need help.
> And as such it should be handled. As a new product which _has_
> bugs, which is _not complete_ and which as such should not be
> used by the wide public at the moment.
No problem. As I said, call me for version 1.
> I'm sure that as soon I can "guarantee" that my installer does
> work under almost all circumstances has every major feature,
> Klaus will happily announce it officially.
I'll be glad to hear what I've been waiting for for almost a year
now. This day, I'll begin my end-user testing. Prove me wrong for
once, I really be grateful!
For now, back to Slackware. No other choice, and not to be
recommended to any Windows user, even with HW dedection.
(adsl-setup at the prompt for setting DSL, apsfilter setup at the
prompt, usw.)
GP
--
La Masse critique
http://pages.infinit.net/mcrit
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